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NCFCA Openness Project Wiki
Welcome to the NCFCA & STOA Openness Project! "Opening the door to better debate." This is a project organized by current and former debaters of the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association and STOA, dedicated to increasing the quality of debate within our leagues, and thus ultimately our ability to glorify God. We are an undefined bunch of individuals who are open with arguments, cases, even entire briefs. This project deals with being open within our debates the same way we would in the real world. This wiki site will facilitate greater openness in NCFCA debate by allowing debaters to freely and anonymously share case flows and other information that will allow them to become better communicators. If you have debated a team at a tournament, please post your flow of their 1AC here. The goal is to create a comprehensive database of what cases every team in the league is running, and to provide a forum for critiquing cases and allowing teams to build stronger cases. This site is based on the principle of "full disclosure," which is the opposite of the principle of "security by obscurity." This is the idea that the more people know about something and can discover its vulnerabilities, the stronger it can become. This principle has seen proven success in the computer security industry, in the practice of law, in debate, and many other areas of life. We urge you to make this your philosophy for debate-- one of not just wanting to win, but one of education, so that we may be effective evangelists for Christ in the future. ~ The NCFCA Openness Movement Why We Do What We Do We believe that allowing negatives to know affirmative cases before hand increases the educational value of debate, since it allows negatives to be better prepared and encourages more in-depth research and argumentation than would be possible when a negative has to make up most of their arguments on the spot when facing a case they've never seen before. If the negative has a general knowledge of most of the cases they face, they are able to research a case much more thoroughly and give stronger, more nuanced, and deeper analysis in the round than would otherwise be possible. Openness also helps affirmatives, since facing a team who has actually researched your case reveals weaknesses you otherwise wouldn't have been aware of and allows you to plug those holes before the next tournament. We believe that relying on the element of surprise gives affirmatives "cheap" wins and detracts from the quality of analysis in the round, whereas if affirmatives face teams that are prepared they get to know their case much better and become much better at defending it. Each of us involved in the Openness Project have experienced how our own debate skills have improved as a result of increased transparency and cutting guessing games out of debate. In most real-world fields, the element of surprise simply isn't there. In law there is a process called discovery where each side finds out all the information the other side knows, so that there are no surprises at trial and both sides can argue their cases with all the facts known, which is more likely to produce a just outcome. Likewise the computer software industry relies on good hackers who reveal security vulnerabilities before bad hackers can exploit them. The strongest software of all is open source software, which everyone can study the source code to and can more easily discover vulnerabilities before they become a problem. We believe debate should be the same way, and desire to encourage others to be more open with their cases. Part of that is this Wiki, which is designed to allow the creation of a comprehensive case list for all NCFCA teams and to enable easy case-flow sharing, promoting the maximum spread of information possible. We rely on the fact that once a case has been run at a tournament, it is public information, and anyone is free to share their knowledge of other people's cases however they wish. Because of that and because it would be counter-productive to our goals, we do not allow people to "opt out" of having their case listed and have it removed. Copyright Disclaimer The postings on this site do not infringe on anyone’s copyright or intellectual property in any way. Under the “Fair Use” doctrine of U.S. copyright law, someone may freely quote from or excerpt small portions of a creative work for purposes of comment or criticism without infringing copyright. Case flows fall squarely under that category, as they are only outlines of a debate, equivalent to the table of contents from a book. As such, posting mere outlines of cases—whether they were created by debaters themselves or were originally from a source book—does not infringe anyone’s copyright. The only complete cases that are posted on this site are posted by the authors themselves. Any complete cases posted without the author’s permission will be removed. Site Instructions Please visit the Team Policy Caselist or the Lincoln Douglas Caselist to begin adding case flows. To add a flow, first add the team to the appropriate place on this case list with a wikilink on the team name, then click on the red wikilink to create a new page with flows of the team's 1AC. Update: Caselist links updated for the 2010-11 season. Site Rules #Any case that has been run at a tournament is public information and is fair game for the purposes of this site. If you have debated a team that does not have a recent flow posted, please post a flow of their 1AC. #'Please do not post cases that have not yet been run at a tournament.'However, once a case has been posted, we simply are not able to adjudicate whether it has or has not been run at a tournament already. In the interests of fairness, the case will remain up. If you haven't run your case and a club-member is speaking out-of-turn, please take that issue up with them. #The only time a complete (word-for-word) case may be posted is with the express permission of the original author. Complete cases posted without the author's permission (including cases from source books) are a violation of the author's copyright and will be removed. #The only reasons a case flow may be removed from this site is if it is outdated, that case is no longer being run, or there is a copyright violation. '''Under no circumstances '''may anyone remove a case flow and/or case list entry because they simply do not want it to be on the site. This is because our goal is to create a comprehensive list of as many cases as possible, and allowing people to opt out would deprive others of the benefits that openness provides. Therefore, improper deletions will be reverted and all IP addresses responsible for unjustified removals will be banned. #Any improper deletions should be reported on the talk page of this site's primary administrator, DarkLordofdebate. General Disclaimer This wiki is entirely run by current and former debaters from the NCFCA and STOA home school debate leagues. It is not affiliated with either organization, nor is its content approved by them. Any use of their names on this site is in full compliance with the "fair use" principles of U.S. trademark law. All questions and concerns about the site should be directed to Darklordofdebate. Category:Browse